Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Hacking Risks Persist Even if Firms Leave China

Google and other enterprises still face a bleak computer security landscape that makes their companies vulnerable to hackers, whether they do business in China or not, analysts say.

Google's chief legal officer revealed on Tuesday that the company and more than 20 other technology, financial and software companies were targeted by hackers, motivated to steal intellectual property and intelligence on human rights activists.

In protest, Google said it would stop censoring search engine results as demanded by the Chinese government and is considering halting its business within the country.

"I think the logic is clear: Google is disappointed, perhaps, with the result of its policy to agree to be censored in China," said Whit Andrews, lead Google analyst for Gartner. "They are no doubt frustrated by security breaches which they perceive are related to their existence in China."

But Andrews and others analysts say the distributed nature of the Internet means Google and other enterprises are at no less risk from hackers sympathetic to Chinese policy by not doing business in that country.